Today, our society seems to have recognized the social value of ancestral wisdom. Its applicability to environmental sustainability and community empowerment is often discussed in public through mass media. Many awareness-building programs incorporate the lessons learned from nature and from living that is nurtured by our ancestral wisdom. Learning the essence of designing a living mainly for design students is also being often implanted in such environment to imbue students with the related culture-anchored design elements and strengthen their perception of the same. Such programs cannot be sustained without the full satisfaction of all the stakeholders concerned, e.g., a local beneficiary community, a program organizer/fund provider, and participating students. This paper thus identifies the key elements of tripartite reciprocity as conclusion through an analysis of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) program and a workshop jointly organized by Aalto (Helsinki-based) and Chiba University held in Asuke, Aichi prefecture. They are namely: (1) development capacity/ power reinforced by a community's strong commitment and recognition of their own resources, (2) program organizers' educational goals such as the students' full understanding of an endogenous development concept, nonproblem-solving approach, true meaning of symbiosis with nature, and (3) students' satisfaction with their exposure to new ways of design thinking.

It has been 20 years since Taiwan government started to boost the community empowerment movement in 1994, and the cases of communities empowered by crafts are numerous. However, it has to be further clarified how craftsmen involve, promote and establish cooperative networks. This research selected two ceramic workshops that combined ceramic art with regional agricultural characteristics as the research targets. They are Bai-He Ceramic Workshop, a ceramics studio connecting to the lotus industry, in Tainan and Chao's Kiln Home that cooperates with the wheat industry in Daya, Taichung. This paper aimed to analyze how the two research targets constructed networks connecting to local resources to promote regional revitalization. The study adopted participation observation and in-depth interview to collect information with field study, and the content of resource networks was analyzed with network maps. The study discovered that the promotion of community crafts generated five forces and brought five synthetic benefits for networks including (1) Forces for aesthetic design: the aesthetic quality of each node and the entire activity is improved through craft design, (2) Forces for network connection: craftsmen as the key middlemen to connect the network of regional resources, (3) Forces for activity integration: resource nodes are connected by annual festivals to create cooperation opportunities, (4) Forces for educational contribution: each resource node in the networks was willing to devote to aesthetic education, (5) Forces for social welfare: assisting disadvantaged people to improve social cares at each node and to create the core value of crafts network.

The research mainly carries out post-test study on design of cultural product based on aboriginal legend. According to development of bag decoration product from Atayal legend in the Fusing Township, Taoyuan, Taiwan, the research investigates important guidance from "story" for development in aboriginal culture product to facilitate thinking during design of cultural product. Qualitative and quantitative methods are used to study story-based product with local culture. Discussion is made through "design anthropology" as the descriptive basis for design of cultural product. According to the research, it is found that consumers are quite willing to purchase story-based aboriginal product and believe cultural feature reflects cultural communication and favor to product. The research verifies introduction of "story" into design of cultural product is accepted by the public and touching. Therefore, it on the basis of story development assists in developing aboriginal culture product, and discusses perspectives of consumer buying story-based cultural product and five senses experience conveyed by product which touches human through story-based design.

This paper examines and analyzes the streets and areas of the shopping district around the Ruins of St. Paul in Macau. It concludes by performing image design simulation for the commercial signage of the shopping district. Students majoring in the study of art design undertook the simulation that follows the examination of the shopping district. These students selected and analyzed decorative patterns within the Ruins of St. Paul before transforming them into two-dimensional images. In the process of designing signage they drew image associations in assimilating the characteristics of patterns and their symbolic meanings with brand names and stores to propose image designs which were both individually unique and based on the same styles. This course of research not only fosters student's ability to proactively choose subjects and design expressions in order to establish and discover the previously ignored features of patterns in the environment, but also construct one kind of visual image for the city and attempt to transform the shopping district's previous modes of image design.

This research focused on the "Jiaxing Tripitaka" and "Hongjiao Tripitaka". Research is conducted mainly through document investigation and comparison to explore Han Tze typeface formation characteristics between the two, understand the evolution of print typeface and make comparison with DFMingMedium-B5 typeface, which is used in computer nowadays, for the purpose of serving as references for people engaged in education design and editing printing design related tasks. Results from this research are as follows: (1). Typefaces for "Jiaxing Tripitaka" and "Hongjiao Tripitaka" both changed strokes (side-draw method) formation to horizontal or vertical draws. (2). Most typefaces on "Jiaxing Tripitaka" illustrate apparent thinness in horizontal strokes but thickness in vertical strokes. However, a few typefaces still possess chirography characteristics. There are apparent decorative corners and vertical strokes are relatively thicker and bigger on the overall formation of "Hongjiao Tripitaka" typefaces. However, both typefaces are similar to DFMingMedium-B5 typeface used in modern day computers.

Although research shows that Japanese consumers' purchase intensions and favorability depends more on the emotional than informational appeal of advertisements for vegetables, a typical low-involvement product, there exists no detailed research into high-involvement products. Therefore, we quantitatively measured the effect of emotional vs. informational appeal on purchase intentions and favorability for two high-involvement products, OTC drugs and laptops. Participants having viewed and evaluated the appeal of TV advertisements, a multiple regression analysis indicated that informational appeal such as "product features" enabled the prediction of purchase intentions for laptops, while "product features" and "feeling of safety" were both significantly correlated to purchase intentions for OTC drugs. Favorability for these two categories was also significantly correlated to the "interesting" variable. Finally we examined consumer reliability across different media choices. Consumers relied heavily on internet advertising when purchasing laptops, while considering TV advertising to be the most reliable information source for OTC drugs.

After the society experiences the western feminist movement, its pursuit of gender equality occurs subsequently. This pursuit is also commonly seen in the promotion of gender equality. However, a gender stereotype seems to exist in various types of design thinking, amounting to showing designers' fixed gender values and the influence of the values. This study investigate differences in gender perception of product design, including the analysis of differences in gender consciousness in versatile product designs, the design of binding women's freedom, the design of installing and reduplicating a concept that women should help the husband and teach the children at home, and the design of consolidating the social status of men, shaping male images or professional images. Along the line, this study provides a careful examination of these designs, and considers possible changes in the future of design thinking.